Tweeting the revolution

The NYT has an interesting article on the use of Twitter in the ongoing protests in Tehran over the Iranian presidential election. While acknowledging that other forms of communication, including websites and regular text messages, have played an arguably more important role than Twitter, the article points out several aspects of the new technology which have made it particularly useful. Most important is the fact that, as a tool rather than a website, Twitter has been essentially impossible to shut down:

"You do not have to visit the home site to send a message, or tweet. Tweets can originate from text-messaging on a cellphone or even blogging software. Likewise, tweets can be read remotely, whether as text messages or, say, “status updates” on a friend’s Facebook page. Unlike Facebook, which operates solely as a Web site that can be, in a sense, impounded, shutting down Twitter.com does little to stop the offending Twittering. You’d have to shut down the entire service, which is done occasionally for maintenance."

The article also quotes HLS cyberspace guru Jonathan Zittrain; I saw him give an awesome, hilarious presentation on internet law a few months ago. In addition to connecting the Tehran protesters with each other, social media technologies like Facebook and Twitter have been critical in getting information to international news outlets, which have been essentially blocked from sending reporters to the protests. For example, the mobile phone video of protester Neda Soltan bleeding to death after allegedly being shot by the Basij has been picked up by international news sources including CNN, provoking outrage both domestically and around the world.

Not coincidentally, the NYT is also reporting that Jared Cohen, a 27-year-old member of the State Department's policy planning staff, contacted Twitter last week to request a delay of scheduled maintenance which would have interrupted service during the protests. It seems that the State Department's use of communications technology, which previously focused on distributing books about Abraham Lincoln, may be catching up with the times.

Palau to accept Guantánamo Uighurs

News on Guantánamo is coming fast and furious; today the island nation of Palau announced that it would accept up to 17 Uighurs who are being held at Guantánamo. The case of the Uighurs (Chinese Muslims) has represented a particularly egregious stain on US detainee policy; the Bush Administration declined to classify them as enemy combatants, essentially admitting that it had no case against them, and a US federal district court ordered last fall that they should be released into the United States. As the NYT points out, the administration hopes to begin cutting down the numbers at Guantánamo by releasing prisoners which it doesn't believe to be a threat to the United States, and by trying in civilian courts the prisoners it thinks it can convict there:

"The Obama administration has been negotiating actively with European and other governments to resettle 50 detainees, who it says are cleared for transfer. Since Mr. Obama took office, the United States has transferred one detainee to France and one to Britain. On Tuesday, it sent the first detainee to the United States to face charges in federal court."

In a sense, these two categories of detainees are the "easy part;" the third group of prisoners, those whom the administration believes are a threat to the United States but, for various reasons, it cannot convict in civilian courts, will represent the most thorny challenge in the effort to close Guantánamo.

Guantánamo detainee on trial in New York

More news on Guantánamo: a former detainee has been arraigned in US civilian court in Manhattan. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian, pleaded not guilty to charges that he abetted the 1998 bombing of the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam. His appearance in civilian court seems to provide further evidence of the Obama Administration's willingness to seek the most expedient solution to the Guantánamo detainees on a case-by-case basis, and specifically to use civilian courts to try everyone it deems convictable there; we previously reported that the Justice Department was working up analysis on this. The NYT reports:

"Mr. Ghailani’s appearance in the packed courtroom on Tuesday came after President Obama’s announcement last month that he would be transferred to civilian court as part of the effort to close Guantánamo. The president said the plan was to try terrorism suspects in federal courts “whenever feasible.”"

Closing Guantánamo was a central promise of Candidate Obama's national security platform, but it has so far proved easier said than done, partly because of significant push-back from Congress on the idea of transferring detainees to the United States. Nevertheless, the fact that some movement is happening represents a profound change from the approach of the previous administration, which seemed content to leave hundreds of prisoners, some of whom it had essentially admitted to be innocent of any crime, in a perpetual legal black hole.

Spain opens inquiry on Guantánamo

The NYT is reporting that Spain has opened a judicial inquiry into the question of whether USG officials committed torture in their interrogations of Guantánamo detainees.

Wait, what? How does a Spanish court have any claim to jurisdiction over the actions of Americans in Cuba? It's not, as would make slightly more sense, because one of the detainees in question is a Spanish citizen. No, it's because of "Spain's observance of the principle of universal justice."

"Garzon said he was acting under Spain's observance of the principle of universal justice, which allows crimes allegedly committed in other countries to be prosecuted in Spain."

Ouch! So now Spain can prosecute me for offenses supposedly committed anywhere in the world? I'm as much against torture as the next guy, but isn't that a significant expansion of jurisdiction? Can Spain prosecute me for breaking the laws of my own country in my own country? For breaking Spanish laws in my own country? For breaking "international laws?" I feel like I need an informational brochure on this.

"Garzon cited media accounts of the documents and said he would ask the U.S. to send the documents to him."

Ooh, so sorry, national secrets and all...sure you understand.

Bagram detainees gain access to U.S. courts

A U.S. District Court judge ruled today that three non-Afghan detainees who are currently being held at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan have the right to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts. This ruling extends the Supreme Court's ruling, in Boumediene v. Bush, that detainees at Guantánamo could do the same thing (see this post for a discussion of who remains at Guantánamo).

In related news, I attended a talk a few days ago by NYU Law professor Stephen Schulhofer, who argued that the U.S. civilian criminal justice system is flexible enough to try the Guantánamo detainees, even accounting for questions of classified evidence, hearsay, and possibly torture. In contrast to the opinion, expressed elsewhere, that the Bush administration rendered dangerous people unprosecutable in civilian courts through the use of "enhanced interrogation methods," Schulhofer believes that any detainee who is unconvictable in U.S. civilian courts is probably not a danger to the United States. The Justice Department is reportedly in the process of analyzing the prosecutability of the remaining Guantánamo detainees.

Karzai seeks to move elections forward

The US presidential transition has not been easy for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has seen his status in Washington downgraded from untouchable golden boy to semi-legitimate leader of a narco-state. While Bush used to hold weekly video conferences with the dashing Pashtun, then-Senator Joe Biden famously walked out in the middle of a dinner with Karzai after the Afghan leader had stated that there was no corruption in his administration. Now the NYT and other sources are reporting that Karzai has decreed that the upcoming presidential elections, which had been scheduled for August, will be moved forward to April or May.

While this appears, in one sense, to be an attempt to avert a constitutional crisis stemming from the fact that Karzai is required by law to step down when his term ends on May 21, many commentators suspect darker motives. These include the possibilities that Karzai (1) wants to use US and NATO logistics and support for his campaign, as he did last time, and (2) wants to take his opponents by surprise by holding the election before they are prepared to mount an effective challenge:

"Snap elections might favor Mr. Karzai, as his opponents would probably be unprepared for such a short campaign. The earlier elections also would keep him from having to run a campaign while under a cloud of accusations that he had overstayed his term and was no longer a legitimate president."

Karzai's opponents, by the way, include former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani (a long-time power broker), recently-former Finance Minister Anwar ul-Haq Ahadi (slick but maybe competent), and First Vice President Ahmad Zia Massood (brother of the assasinated leader of the Northern Alliance and "Lion of the Panjsher," Ahmad Shah Massood).

You may remember from a previous post that BU anthropologist Thomas Barfield predicted that Karzai, whose popularity hovers around 20%, might try to steal this election. Stay tuned for more devilry!

Back from Algeria

Hey all (er...that's all of you who read this blog, which I think at this point is Boris), I'm back from almost two months in Algeria. I decided not to post anything while I was there, not because I was specifically advised not to, but because I wanted to avoid any possibility of causing problems for my hosts and the people I was working with. As I mentioned in the previous post, this threw something of a wrench into my plans to launch this blog on Inauguration Day, although you can rest assured that I watched the whole thing from my hotel room on the BBC. Anyway, I had a good time, did some technical work which is not hugely relevant to this blog, rocked the cash bar, and am raring to go with some new posts about that rascally Hamid Karzai. So thanks for bearing with me (Boris) and expect more content in the next few days.